KING Edward Mine (KEM) marked its 25th year as a museum by commemorating the installation of a heritage headframe and celebrating the talented volunteers who restored it.

The Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, Colonel Sir Edward Bolitho KCVO OBE, presided over the occasion on Saturday (July 11) and unveiled a commemorative plaque in the presence of trustees, volunteers and invited guests.

Located in Troon, near Camborne, KEM is Cornwall’s best preserved mine site. Its buildings have been beautifully restored and serve as a community hub for the Cornish Mining World Heritage area.

A headframe is the structural framework positioned directly above an underground mine shaft. Its primary purpose is to lift mined ore to the surface so that it can be routed into mills or processing plants, but it also allows miners to safely enter and exit underground workings, directs fresh air into a mine and dispels hazardous gases, and stabilises the entrance of the mine shaft itself.

In 1897, KEM was developed as a fully operational training mine by Camborne School of Mines (CSM) and was used as a teaching facility for more than 100 years.

A new headframe was erected above Engine Shaft at the turn of the 20th century to provide access for miners and materials, pump water from 40 fathoms deep, and supply ventilation for the underground workings. However, it collapsed in 1934. Although it had always been the ambition of KEM to erect a replacement, it was not until 2023 that an opportunity to do so was presented by the owner of one of the last remaining wooden headframes in Cornwall, who asked if KEM would take on its renovation.

This headframe was originally built at Geevor and erected at Cligga Head, near St Agnes in 1962. From there, it was moved to Nangiles in the Wheal Jane area, then on to Wheal Concord at Skinners Bottom in 1980. This latter site later became the home of Cornish Firewood, which is owned by Jason Thomas, whose family who offered a long-term loan to enable the headframe to be restored and installed at KEM.

From dismantling and cleaning to repairing and reassembling, KEM’s talented volunteers - including former Geevor apprentice Mike May, who helped to build the original headframe in 1962 - laboured patiently for thousands of hours to reach the moment in February when the headframe was re-erected to tower proudly on the Troon skyline for the first time in 92 years.

Chair of trustees John McDonnell said: “I would like to thank Jason Thomas and his family for the long-term loan of this important piece of Cornish mining heritage, which now helps us to highlight the relationship between mining underground and the winding mechanism and ore processing in the mill, which our museum so aptly demonstrates.”

KEM is a charity and receives no local authority or government funding. It derives its income from opening to the public on Mondays, Tuesday, Wednesdays and Saturdays until the end of October. To find out more, visit www.kingedwardmine.co.uk